Setting up Zo’C PowerBlogRoll

UPDATE 11/16/2015: I think this is all gone now… cannot locate the web site any longer, and do not see the plugin on the WP site anymore.) I am using this pretty cool plug in to create a BlogRoll page. Called “powerblogroll and written by Zo’C. I had used it as a widget using the “widgetize anything” plugin, but decided to move it to a “links” page after it outgrew the sidebar. (Link to web site removed 11/16/2015 no longer worked and I could not locate web site any longer.)

I have seen quite a few questions on the authors web page about setting it up, and while there is some help, it seems there are still quite a few questions. I am certainly no programmer, but with several hours (!) was able to make a page work. Here is my quick guide in case anyone googles for help and happens to find this.

1. You need a “links.php” template. The template I am currently using did not have one included. So I used the Theme Editor in WordPress to look at the other templates I had downloaded to try out before. I found one with a “Links” page. (The “WordPress Default” theme has a “Links” page.)

2. I used FTP to make a copy of that “Links” page into the current theme I wanted to use.

3. I opened the new “links.php” page with the WP Theme Editor. I do not think I removed any code from the original template, only added four lines. The total contents of this page is now:

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

<?php
/*
Template Name: Links (Whatever you put here is what appears in your theme template list.)
*/
?>

<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id=”zoc_powerblogroll”>
<h2>Recommended Links:</h2>
<ul class=”zoc_powerblogroll”>
<?php wp_zoc_powerblogroll(); ?>
</ul>
</div>

<?php get_footer(); ?>
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

In mine I only added the four lines lines in bold above which are:

<div id=”zoc_powerblogroll”>

<ul class=”zoc_powerblogroll”>
<?php wp_zoc_powerblogroll(); ?>

</ul>

in the code above.

Check the “Template Name: Links” line also. You can name this anything you want. This is the name that will show up in the WP Page Editor when you select the template to use.

Then I had to add the CSS to the StyleSheet page, again using the WP Theme Editor.

I just found a spot in the existing code and stuck this in:

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

/* This section begins the formatting for the BlogRoll Links Page */
.zoc_powerblogroll { list-style: none; }
.zoc_powerblogroll ul{ list-style: none; }
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Actually this is not necessary if you do not mind the default “List” bullets (created by the “ul” code) in front of each entry. (assuming the template you are using has them.) In powerblogroll I use the setting to show the favicons and found also showing the extra “ul” bullet was distracting. This actually is what took me the longest to figure out.

That was it. I just used WP Editor, created a new Page, used the “Links” template, left the contents of the blank and it puts in the BlogRoll automatically. If you want to add text into the blogrollpage you probably have to add more CSS for something like “contents”… but that is all dependent on how the theme author wrote the CSS.

Now I am pretty sure that someone that really knows what is going on will say “you don’t need this in the code”, or “you don’t need that in the code”, or there are 32 better ways to do this. But I wasn’t getting much help from the web site, and so just experimented until I got it to work. If there is a better way I am happy to revise this, but until then you can try it this way.

Good Luck!

If any “real” plug in editors read this. What I would *really* like is to combine this plugin with another that would also order the links the way I want them. I do not like seeing “Ardvarks R Us” first in the blogroll just because it starts with “A”. There is another plugin that does this called “mylinkorder” which has manual sorting options. This can be found at . Unfortunately the two do not work together right now.

If you didn’t already know PowerBlogRoll can (Could) be found here: “z-oc.com/blog/powerblogroll” UPDATE: 12/14/2015 this is no longer working so I removed the link. You can try searching for this ULR though.

Since getting this working I have found another issue, which I think is unrelated to the changes above. I use another plugin to format the blog for mobile users. It is now showing the first page, as opposed to post, and it also reveals text in the BlogRollPage which is not visible when viewed with a normal browser.

Until the final WP PlugIn loses power,

BBSSS Beachs Buffets Sun Sand Shells

Holidays and vacations seem to go together. After we celebrated Christmas with the families we headed out for a little drive.
First stop was Lookout Mountain Georgia where we visited “Rock City”. I have seen the barns painted with “See Rock City” along the roads for years so finally decided it was time to see what it was all about. We made it in the evening for the “Fantasy of Lights” which they do every Christmas time. You can see the pictures in the album.
It was about as expected. Some very nice natural scenery and a lot of tourist stuff.

My curiosity satisfied we were on the road to the next destination, Florida’s “Emerald Coast”. Nancy had heard about the emerald green gulf waters and white sand and wanted to see for herself. We hit the coast beaches from Fort Walton across the pan handle until we turned towards Orlando.

We did not want to use a full day of a Disney ticket when we only had a partial day, so we spent time visiting some of the theme resorts. As they do for about everything, the Disney crew puts together some pretty nice resorts! They were decorated for Christmas so it seemed extra special. We also had tickets to see Cirque Du Soleil La Nouba. This was really cool. We have been to several “Cirque” shows and each one seems better than the one before.

Over the next two days we spent time in Animal Kingdom and Disney Hollywood Studios (new name for MGM studios.) Lots of photos, and a good time… even if it did rain a little the final day.

The other place we wanted to see was Sanibel Island. Nancy loves natural things, and shells is high on the list. We have been told about how great Sanibel is for finding shells so we wanted to see for ourselves and hopefully score some “hand picked” shells. We made it down to the island and out onto a number of the beachs. Unfortunately the weather had turned a bit nippy, and the wind was kicking up pretty good. We still managed to spend a couple of hours wandering up and down the shore line looking for “finds”. Since we came home with some pretty full bags of shells I guess it was a success.

We had some dinner at the local tourist spot “The Bubble Room” and then headed back off the island. After a nights rest we headed back towards Michigan, and got home about 2 am…. We had been concerned since we had heard there had been about a foot of snow since we left, and were not sure how we were going to get into the garage. It turned out that a mysterious neighbor had cleared the drive way already so we were able to pull right into the garage and hit the beds!

This is a pretty condensed version of the trip, but probably few people if any really want all the details.

Until Mickey and Minney fall out of love,

Signature Test Post

Will this really add my new signature, or did I screw up the code?

Well, whadda ya know? It looks like it works the first time in the preview window!
How personal is this little touch.

Movie Test –

So… I love to play with widgets, gadgets and other things. When they do not blow something up, they are neat.
This is a new one that pops video into the blog. I have a Quicktime mov file of the Lumberjack competition in Frankenmuth Michigan that I put here just to see how it works.

Frankenmuth

www.kasdorf.net/GMovies/Frankenmuth Michigan [2006-05] 027.MOV

The video itself is maybe not the greatest, but the idea is what can be done!

May have to stick some more on here sometime.

Update 12/14/2015 – It appears Quick Time is no longer working as it once did. But you can go ahead and try. This will now download the MOV file which can then be opened and played outside of the browser.

George

Relief!! It feels great!

Last night I was attempting to figure out how children pages work, which isn’t all that difficult, but one thing that bugged me was how the link on the title worked. It takes the user to the web site home page, not the blog home page. Being a very smart guy I changed the URL to include “wordpress/index.php”…. oh oh… big mistake. I totally locked up the blog. All I could get was a funky page with no formatting, which wasn’t so bad, except when I tried to log on I kept getting an error that insisted on informing me “cookies must enabled”… well they are, as they have been since starting with WordPress more than a year ago…. I tried to relax the security settings, no luck. I tried a different computer, no luck. I tried Firefox, no luck. Midnight approached and then passed – I gave up. One lesson I HAVE tried to learn… when in a tough spot and you get tired as well as frustrated bad things can happen… real bad. Today I tried a few more things with the same negative results. Right after I upgraded WP to 2.3.1 I ftp’ed all the files from the server back to my hd “just in case”. I moved those back to the server… no luck. I was about to log onto the server, drop all the PHP files and restore them from a recent backup… which runs nightly…. after the last mishap… which was “oops #2,461”. Since that operation always has the potential to go south and make a bigger mess I logged onto the WordPress Org support forum and posted my problem.

Amazing, but within two minutes I had a response (along with a scolding….)

Amazing, but within two minutes I had a response (along with a scolding….) I was pointed to “www.village-idiot.org” web site.
Here they have a small utility appropriately, it’s called WordPress Emergency URL Changer Thing.

I read the directions, downloaded the small php file, edited it per instruction, dl’ed it to the server, logged on, changed the errant URL, logged off, logged on and here I am! I think from the time I opened the post in the forum to the time I closed it out it was a total of 16 minutes.

Fantastic. I can sleep tonight!
George

This is to cool – or is it?

I just found out about a new plugin for WordPress which integrates Jalbum directly into a WP blog entry.
I needed a post to try it out, so here it is. Let see if it works!
Okay, test one failed… getting errors in path.
Okay, test two failed… getting errors in path.
Okay, test three worked, I think the only issue was the direction of the slash!

But, putting the entire album in means every thumbnail is in the post! Way to many!!
[jalbum_album_short:/GSlideShows/Alberta2007,4]
Using the option for showing only 4 thumbnails.

I am going to try single photo….
. . . . some time later . . . I was reading the authors website . . . I am supposed to be able to limit the number of thumbnails . . . . somehow . . .
That works really great, even shows how many photos are in total album. Only issue I have is that the thumbnails are getting pretty grainy when I move them up to 300 pixels, which is the size I normally like them. Moved them back to 150.

[jalbum_photo:/GSlideShows/Alberta2007,Alberta Canada 2007-07 005.jpg]

Now that works sweet!
I like that I can see the thumbnail, then it opens the actual album. Other than tracking down the correct album and photo name it is easier than the LightBox Plus plug in I was using… which I still like to quickly show a thumbnail and then a full size photo, which can be the same or different photo which is nice.

Now . . . . I wonder what the IFrame option does . . .
Okay . . okay, but not my preference. It does allow the full album to be inserted, and maybe with a different theme, like one that resizes, it may work better, but I don’t like all the scrolling this way. I like opening the album from the thumbnail, then the new album can be close so the user returns to the blog entry.
[jalbum_iframe_album:https://www.kasdorf.name/GSlideShows/Alberta2007/index.html,100%,600px]

Until the final plug in blows up,
George